RALEIGH — Gov. Mike Easley doesn't have a powerful state organization, nor is he a national political figure.

But Easley's endorsement of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could help the Democratic presidential candidate in her quest for more traditional rural and small-town blue-collar Democrats in North Carolina's primary Tuesday.

Easley's reputation as a sort of "Governor Bubba" helped make him the only two-term Democratic governor in the South. Easley was elected to office as a pistol-packing former prosecutor and was re-elected as the governor who crashed a NASCAR race car into the wall during a charity event.

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